iQOO launched its iQOO 9T smartphone in India this week. And it is one of the first phones in India to be powered by the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 SoC. It is the upgraded version of the iQOO 9 that has several upgrades including. A larger 6.78″ FHD+ 120Hz E5 AMOLED display, upgraded camera and a larger 4700mAh battery pack. Is it the best phone in the market under 50K price? Let’s dive into the review to find out.
Box Contents
- iQOO 9T in Legend colour
- 120W Flash charge fast charger
- USB Type-C to C Cable
- SIM Ejector tool
- Clear protection case
Display, hardware and design
The iQOO 9T sports a 6.78-inch (1080 x 2400 pixels) Full HD+ 20:9 aspect ratio E5 AMOLED display with a 120Hz refresh rate. The display is bright, thankfully, with a brightness of up to 1500 nits and the color output is also good. As it has 1.07 billion colors and sunlight legibility is also good.
You can select from standard (default), professional and bright screen color modes. 120Hz refresh rate, 360Hz touch sampling rate and 1200Hz instant touch sampling. Rate provide a smooth user experience. Especially when you are scrolling through the UI and during gaming. You can select Smart Switch or Force 60Hz or 120Hz. Visual Enhancement optimizes the color and contrast. Of some images for a more vivid display effect, the company says.
It also has HDR 10+ support, which works for YouTube and Netflix. The phone doesn’t have a notification LED. But it does have an always-on display that shows relevant information. And notifications throughout the day or on a schedule. Since it’s an AMOLED screen, it doesn’t consume much power. But the company says it increases power consumption. The screen has SCHOTT Xensation Alpha Glass protection.
The phone has a 16MP front camera inside the notch. There is an earpiece on the top edge that also acts as a secondary speaker.
You may also notice a small bezel at the bottom of the screen. Haptic feedback is also good, thanks to the dual X-axis linear motors.
In terms of button placement and ports. The power button is present on the right side along with the volume rocker. There is nothing on the left side, so you can only see the antenna band. The dual SIM slot, primary microphone, USB Type-C port and loudspeaker grill are at the bottom. While the secondary microphone with IR blaster is at the top. The phone does not have expandable storage. The phone has a metal frame with a matte finish. It is a bit heavy as it weighs 207 grams.
The phone has a glass back. We have a dual-tone finish with a Kevlar-like finish near the camera part. On the Legend version and BMW stripes with iQOO branding on the rest. The Alpha model has an all-black look. The phone has an IP52 rating which makes it splash resistant.
Camera
- 50MP camera with f/1.75 aperture, 1/1.57″ Samsung GN5 sensor, OIS
- 13MP 120° ultra-wide Samsung ISOCELL 3L6 CMOS sensor with f/2.2 aperture
- 12MP portrait camera with Sony IMX663 sensor, f/1.98 aperture, 2x optical zoom, 20x digital zoom
- 16MP front-facing camera with f/2.45 aperture
The camera UI is like other phones running FunTouch OS 12. It has several features like AR Stickers, Pro Sports Mode, Double Exposure, Dual View. 64MP Mode and more. Although the phone has a 50MP rear camera, the final output. After pixel binning is 12.5MP in size and the front camera output is 16MP. There is a V1+ chip for real-time extreme night vision
In terms of camera quality, daylight shots are good, and it is recommended. To enable the HDR option which automatically turns. On HDR according to the shot, so that the dynamic range is good.
The camera can focus quickly. The 13MP ultra-wide camera does a good job and lets you capture macro shots.
You can enable the auto macro option, so that it switches to the ultra-wide camera when you get close to a subject. There is also a 12MP portrait camera that offers 2X zoom. You can manually adjust the aperture in portrait mode for the best background blur. Low light photos are good, but could be better. Night mode is useful, thanks to the optimization.
The 16MP camera is good in daylight. And the front-facing camera’s portraits are decent, but not the best in low light.
It can record videos in 4k resolution at up to 60 fps from the rear camera. And the front camera supports 1080p 30 fps recording. There is also a night video mode option. It has standard and ultra stabilization. But the resolution drops to 1080p in the ultra option as it crops content. The OIS stabilization does a good job. Wish it had gimbal stabilization from the iQOO 9, which was a unique feature of that phone. It also lacks HDR video recording.
Software, UI and Apps
Coming to the software, the phone runs on Android 12 on top of Funtouch OS 12. It contains Android security patches for July 2022. The company promises 3 years of Android updates and 4 years of monthly security updates.
Funtouch OS 12 brings new home screen widgets like nano music player. Album highlights, stickers, Grid view for multitasking. Extended RAM technology allocates part of ROM storage to RAM and increases RAM space. As well as Android 12 features like privacy dashboard, security enhancements. microphone and camera indicators and more.
About 11.07GB of the 12GB LPDDR5 RAM is usable, of which 7GB is free when default apps are running in the background. Of the 256GB of UFS 3.1 storage, 221.71GB is free out of the box. We got about 1806.83MBps sequential read speed on Android Bench.
Apart from the usual set of utilities and Google apps. It comes preloaded with many apps like Facebook, Spotify, Byjus. Cred, LinkedIn, Netflix and HealthifyMe. These apps can be uninstalled, but come back after a reset.
Fingerprint sensor and face unlock
The phone has an optical in-display fingerprint sensor. That unlocks the phone instantly by placing your finger on the sensor. You can add up to 5 fingerprints. There are different animation styles that display when you unlock. Which you can disable. The phone also has face unlock which can unlock the phone in seconds, but it is not as secure as fingerprint.
Music and Multimedia
The default music player also has an equalizer and deepfield sound effects. It does not have FM radio support. Audio has super resolution, and super audio features. Audio is crisp and loud through the stereo speakers. Speaker quality is one of the best in the range. Audio through headphones is also good. It has Widevine L1 so you can play HD content on Amazon Prime Video, Netflix and other streaming apps. It also supports HDR playback on Netflix and YouTube.
Dual SIM and connectivity
It has the usual set of connectivity features like 5G with support for 9 5G bands n1,n3,n5,n8,n28,n40,n41,n77 and n78. Dual 4G VoLTE, Wi-Fi 802.11 ac (2.4 + 5GHz). Bluetooth 5.2, GPS + GLONASS and NFC support. It also has USB OTG support. The phone also has carrier aggregation. We didn’t experience any call drops and the earpiece volume is good.
The iQOO 9T’s body SAR is 1.24W/Kg and head SAR is 1.19/Kg. Which is slightly higher than some mid-range phones, but much lower than the limit in India of 1.6 W/kg (over 1 gram).
Performance and criteria
It is one of the first phones launched in India with Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 mobile platform. It has 1 x Kryo Prime CPU (Arm Cortex-X2-based) up to 3.2GHz. Compared to 3GHz in Snapdragon 8, 3 x Kryo Performance CPUs (A710-based) up to 2.50GHz, 4x Kryo retained. Efficiency CPUs (A510-based) up to 1.80GHz.
Thanks to the new TSMC’s 4nm fabrication processor, it promises a 30% power reduction on the CPU. It also offers 10% faster GPU performance. The phone has a large 3930mm² vapor chamber liquid cooling. And the company says it has high-strength graphite. That increases the density by 10% compared to normal graphite. Total cooling area is 29022 mm².
We didn’t encounter any issues or frame drops. In graphic-intensive games like COD, BGMI and Genshin Impact. It reached a largest of 39º in our tests inside Wi-Fi, but this can vary outside on 4G.
For gamers, it has in-display Dual Monster Touch which. So with the L and R keys, the screen is divided into left and right regions. Helps to press any operating position, easily triggers mapping in the game. And two fingers is better. Check out some synthetic benchmark scores. Below four fingers while playing heavy war games.
battery life
In terms of battery life, the phone has a 4700mAh (typical) battery, which is decent for a mid-range phone. Thanks to the optimization, with 4G enabled and multimedia. it can easily last for a day with heavy usage and for 2 days.
I got over 5 hours of screen time with 2 days of use, mostly on Wi-Fi. Since the phone supports 120W fast charging, it can charge from 0 to 50% in around 10 minutes. And 100% in around 25 minutes, though the company claims it to be around 20 minutes.
Conclusion
At a starting price of Rs 49,999, the iQOO 9T is an all-rounder that ticks all the boxes. Compared to the iQOO 9, the 9T is a good improvement in terms of display, SoC, camera and battery. If only it would keep gimbal stability.
Price and Availability
The iQOO 9T is priced at Rs. 49,999 for the 8GB + 128GB model and the 12GB + 256GB model at Rs. 54,999. It is available from iQOO.com and Amazon.in. ICICI Bank Cards get Rs 4000 instant discount. iQOO.com shoppers get a free gamepad with pre-paid orders as part of a limited-time offer.
